


Even Heroes Do Bad Deeds

by Sylvia_Forest



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Cloud Strife joins Sephiroth and Zack in wiping out all life on Gaia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Erratic updates because work is a thing and its breaking me, Gaia has very extreme solutions to her problems, Gaia's Champion Aerith, Gaia's Champion Cloud, Gaia's Champion Sephiroth, Gaia's Champion Zack, I do not wish to make others mad at how this thought baby exploded, M/M, Mentions of time travel and time loops, Not for the faint of heart, Not spoilers because its stated in first chapter, Please read tags and summary carefully before reading, Poor Cloud Strife, Sane Sephiroth (Compilation of FFVII), This breaks poor Cloud, Until later chapters when things go horribly wrong, this is an experimental work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24331303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvia_Forest/pseuds/Sylvia_Forest
Summary: Gaia had sent him and AVALANCHE back so many times to try and save her, until eventually not even Aerith with her connection to Gaia could remember the fact that time was looping. It drained on him and Gaia constantly, until one day Aerith, Zack, and Sephiroth all confronted Gaia about what was wrong so he could truly fix it in the next cycle. Only, Gaia couldn't restart or loop time again. It had drained her of too much power to continue trying to use the time loops to save herself from destruction. So she proposed another plan.After arguing it out with the planet and each other for almost two years, they finally saw Gaia's side of things and succumbed to her will. Destroy all life and give Gaia back everything that was living so she could regain her power with a full lifestream, and everyone they cared for and loved would be given a new life on the new world Gaia would create. Her four chosen Champions would live in her lifestream forever until she needed them to save her again.Except nothing ever goes to plan, as Cloud soon realized when he was reborn as the Prince of a Kingdom millions, if not billions, of years after him and the other Champions fulfilled Gaia's most extreme plan and saved her.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26





	1. The End of A Heroes Journey, or is it?

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a thought baby that has been running in my head for almost two days now and I just got the time to write it up. Its a take on what would happen if Gaia couldn't heal herself and rapidly started dying faster then everyone could reverse the damage done, like cancer that doctors thought was under control and slowly healing suddenly becoming so much worse and killing the patient before anyone could do anything to stop it.
> 
> Gaia has an extreme reaction to this and demands her Champions save her by killing everything on the planet, and even if that isn't enough to save her, it would be enough to send Cloud back in time again to stop her quick fall. She promises a new land for their friends and family to live in with there help, in return for them becoming hers entirely. They take it, and this happens.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy.

I used to be known as the strongest man alive, the greatest swordsman, the champion of Gaia, the killer of gods, and called even more titles that I never bothered to remember. I used to live my life trying to save Gaia and to fix all her problems, trying to save her. Except, each time I failed to save her and she had to use her power to send me back in time to try again, we didn’t know that it would end up like this. We didn’t know, even as I was the only one eventually whoever remembered the past attempts, that her resetting time like she was hurt her more than failing to save her the first time.

We didn’t know this until Aerith called out to me from the lifestream and told me that her, Zack, and Sephiroth had finally realized why Gaia could never be healed. Jenova couldn’t be allowed to live or die on Gaia, but Gaia could only send me back to the day I was born, so she couldn’t use me to stop Jenova from taking control and killing so many when she first crashed onto Gaia. We figured Gaia was doomed, and that Aerith would have to convince Gaia to end the loops.

We didn’t think Gaia would have her own solution.

At this point, I had already burned Jenova into ashes and had destroyed everything related to her, so she was in the lifestream and couldn’t be separated, not while Gaia was so weak. Hince Gaia’s solution to the problem. I never once thought Gaia’s plan was a good one, and I spent a solid month in the lifestream by Aerith, Zack, and Sephiroth’s sides trying to talk Gaia out of the plan she wanted to set into motion.

Me and Sephiroth were the first to see exactly why Gaia had chosen the extreme solution. All life returned to the lifestream if they died on Gaia, the stronger the lifestream the stronger Gaia. Her plan made a sick twisted sense. We didn’t like it, but we were soldiers, we didn’t have to like orders to follow through with them.

So we plotted and planned, and soon we had a way of bringing Sephiroth and Zack back from the lifestream, enhancements and sanity intact. So without telling anyone, I traveled to the bottom of the northern crater and helped Aerith bring them both over to the land of the living. And after they had gotten used to being alive again, we started on the plan.

Gaia had ordered all life to be killed and returned to her, we were to be the last three to return to her. We were her calamity and her saviors. And as much as I hated it, we noticed that our connection with Aerith and Gaia was getting stronger as we killed everything on the northern continent. We hated it, but it was working, so we continued being loyal soldiers for Gaia.

By the time we had reached Wutai and had started to burn everything, Sephiroth brought up a point we had overlooked. How were we supposed to kill everything in the ocean? On land that was easy, the more we burned and turned the land into wastelands of ash, the less life had a place to hide and survivors were heard trying to hide or flee. No one lived when we passed through, no human, monster, animal, plant, nothing. Everything that was alive had to return to the lifestream.

We were still pondering on how to kill the ocean when my PHS rang. I had to retrace our steps to not let Tifa know what was going on, and thankfully, AVALANCHE hadn’t been made aware of what was happening on the other continents. If the WRO knew or not was another matter entirely, one that I couldn’t ask about without raising suspicions if they weren’t already. Tifa was just reminding me about Marlene’s birthday next week and wanted to make sure I was going to be around for it. I told her I would.

Everyone would hate me for it. I would either keep my word or I would break it. It all depended on if Sephiroth was going to be moving us to hit Rocket Town next or if we would skip and head straight for the place with all the people who would have the best chance of stopping the three of us from killing everything.

I broke the promise. And I was thankful for it. Let Marlene be sad I missed her birthday, as long as she got to live just a bit longer then that was fine by me.

I broke down after killing everyone in Rocket Town, Sephiroth and Zack had to comfort me, had to remind me that what we were doing was to secure a better future for everyone we loved. Gaia had promised that once she was healed and recovered, our friends and family would be reborn and would live happier healthier lives thanks to our actions. That was the first night that me and Seph had been left alone together since we started our mission from Gaia, and the need for physical contact with someone who wasn’t about to die had gotten to us.

Looking back on it, that was the first night we had made love while Zack was out in the mountains hunting and killing, so we could eat, and also so we could continue our job.

It was during one of our raids in a lab to clear it of all life and to ensure the dead were actually dead, that Tifa called again, and reported that Reeve wanted all of AVALANCHE to meet him at WRO HQ to talk about something, I told her to tell Reeve to call me when everyone had gathered with him. A day later and he called, and Sephiroth was hacking into WRO HQ to take control of the monitors and speakers so they could see us and we could see them.

He told AVALANCHE exactly what we were doing, but he didn’t tell them why. I never left his side or looked at the monitor while he talked, didn’t even fight when he pulled me into his lap to help me stay calm.

Turns out Cid had returned to Rocket Town to find it burned, Yuffie had returned to Wutai to find her land ash and her people dead, and Vincent had hit Nibelhiem on his way to Lucrecia’s cave to find it also burned and the people dead. I made the soft remark that we forgot to shatter Lucrecia’s crystal while we were in the mountains, Sephiroth replied that we would return to end her before we left for the other continent. AVALANCHE and the WRO didn’t like that.

Our mission got harder after that. WRO and AVALANCHE worked to get to towns and cities before us, they tried to save animals and monsters, people and plants, everything alive they tried to hide from us, sending robots to try and stop us so if they fell no one would die and if they succeed then the robots could be stored away in case one of us got free from the lifestream again.

The next time I saw AVALANCHE was when I entered a town that was being evacuated on my own, everything distinctive about me hidden well by Sephiroth and Zack’s surprising talents with clothes and makeup. I let the WRO soldiers lead me right to the evacuation ships, where Yuffie recognized me, though that was only because I had refused to remove my earring, but it was too late to stop what was going to happen. Yuffie and the town burned, burned until not even ashes remained.

I cried and begged for her to forgive me for weeks, setting back our progress, but Zack and Sephiroth understood exactly what I was feeling. It was why we wanted Midgar to be our last stop, the one place where all of AVALANCHE would have no doubt tried to make a final stand against us. We never thought they would branch out and try to save the people themselves.

But I guess they wouldn’t be AVALANCHE if they didn’t do what we thought they would.

Our progress was slowed, but after Yuffie’s death we were able to find out that the WRO had been moving people to Midgar to protect them, so it really only made our mission easier, even if this mission was slowly taking what was left of my sanity.

Me and Seph sought each other’s comfort nightly at this point, and we didn’t care if Zack was still there or not.

After a month, we had finally killed off everything alive on the continent we were on, and we spilt our group, Zack would hit the islands and kill off those lives while me and Seph worked on boiling the ocean into an unlivable temperature. When we met up on the last continent with life left, we had boiled the entire ocean into nothingness, leaving dying and drying corpses and ocean plant life on a dry wasteland.

We burned and killed everything in our path, the flames burning everything as far as the eye could see and then much much farther. It would have been the smoke to hit Midgar first, that alerted the last stronghold of life that we were coming, then the fires that tried to rage on the wastes around the city, then finally, us.

We had talked about it before we reached Midgar, about what to do about those I loved like family. Sephiroth decided that him and Zack should wipe out life in Midgar while I distracted everyone I loved. Though loved isn’t the proper tense, not even now. I love them. I love AVALANCHE, my dysfunctional family. It’s why when it was just us and them left alive on the world and Tifa demanded to know why, why would we kill everything, why would I give in and let myself be controlled, that I finally broke and fell to my knees sobbing and crying.

We had also talked about what would happen if one of us couldn’t complete the mission because our human emotions had gotten in the way, and we had come to the conclusion that we wouldn’t hesitate to kill the one who had broken so they couldn’t work against the others. I heard the gasps from the others as Sephiroth moved to my side and raised his sword to strike me down.

“Rest easy Cloud,” He had said, his voice strong but also trembling for those who knew him long enough. “You have done your part in our task for Gaia. We shall join you when the last hurdle has been crossed. Rest peacefully, Golden Champion.”

That was the last thing I heard, before I felt Sephiroth’s blade against my neck for a brief second, then Aerith’s arms wrapped around me. We both cried, and when Sephiroth and Zack rejoined us in the lifestream, we all sobbed together as Gaia cocooned us in a shell to never let us join her and the masses because even though all life on Gaia had been wiped out and Gaia was a floating dead rock without even water to grace her surface, she still needed Champions and keepers.

I used to be called Cloud Strife, a wonderful son, a great friend, a lover matched by none, and many more titles when I first lived on Gaia’s surface. But now, I only hold one name as one of Gaia’s guardians in the lifestream, Gaia’s Golden Champion.

Or so I thought until I woke up one evening, small and weak, screaming with lungs so much smaller then I was used to, body unresponsive to anything I tried to do. A blinding light hurt my eyes when I tried to open them, so I squeezed them shut and tried to stop my cries.

“Congratulations, Queen Claudia,” A deep man’s voice rang out from somewhere nearby. “It’s a boy. What shall the name of our first Prince be?”

“Cloud,” a softer feminine voice whispered from above and against me. “Prince Cloud Strife. My late husband’s heir, and the bringer of light and peace.”

I cried harder and felt my small hand clinging desperately to the soft larger one that was pressed against my side lovingly. Gentle little kisses placed against my small forehead made me cry even harder.

I didn’t deserve a chance in this new world Gaia had created after millions if not billions of years after I had helped bring all life on the world to a bloody and horrible end. I didn’t deserve this chance that Gaia had given me. My family and friends were supposed to be reborn, not me.

Though as I started to calm down and fall asleep, I couldn't help but to wonder, did the other Champions get reborn with me?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud is a baby. Cloud is starting to enjoy being a baby.
> 
> Sephiroth also makes a small appearance with his father. 
> 
> Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might be slightly confused as to certain things, and they will be explained soon. Once things start wanting to be explained. But I do want you to know that Sephiroth and Cloud have their adult minds and can think things through like adults, but their bodies only have the functions of the age they are, meaning while Cloud can think like an adult and make logical decisions on what's around him, he can only babble and maybe say mama at his current age. The same thing is with Sephiroth, but he is older than Cloud in this world so he has more control then Cloud does. Also, they can put their adult minds to sleep for a while so their baby minds can take over, mainly so that they don't go crazy or insane having to live through life as a baby with an adult mind, because let's face it, living like that is going to make you question your sanity the longer you keep it up.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy.

Cloud had to admit as he babbled in his mother’s arms that life as a baby was really good, well what he was present for was good anyway. He was learning so much just by laying in his mother’s arms and being silent as she attended council meetings and held court over the past year since he was reborn. That and his mother only dressed him in the softest of clothing so he was warm, as well as always being held by his mother, and being spoiled every day.

Though the term Gaia Blessed kept being repeated around him, and no one was explaining what that meant while around him. So it might be common knowledge that he will learn later, or it might be a new disease that hasn’t been discovered until now, though he hopes he not going to die an infant. Zack would never let him live that down.

‘I wonder what Zack’s doing right now. Probably having fun with the others in the lifestream if he wasn’t reborn like me.’

Thoughts like that were commonplace as long as Cloud stayed conscious in his baby body, just wondering after his companions. Though AVALANCHE would be reborn or already has been reborn into this new world, Cloud found he couldn’t bring himself to think of them. The first and last time he let his thoughts wander off to AVALANCHE he had started to cry and it took his mother the rest of the day to calm him down enough to not burst into tears again.

Though it only added more evidence to the staff of the castle that he was Gaia Blessed. Whatever that meant.

“My Queen,” the loud voice of the royal announcer boomed out. “Queen Lucrecia of the Demons is seeking an audience with you.”

“Lucrecia?” His mother asked softly, tilting her head to look at the door confused. “Show her in. Though I swore she was supposed to be in her own Kingdom taking care of her own son. He can’t already be old enough to not need his mother unless she got a nursemaid.”

The announcer bowed and left the room, the door clicking closed behind him. His mother looked worried.

“He wouldn’t let his wife take their son out of the kingdom while he’s still so young,” she mused out loud. “Even if they are demons, he wouldn’t be strong enough to travel such a long distance at two years old. What is she thinking?”

Cloud lifted his arms to grab onto his mother’s dress, babbling happily in an effort to erase the frown from her face. His mother shouldn’t be frowning when talking about people she seemed to be friends with. His efforts were rewarded with his mother's smile and bright laugh.

“Oh my little stormcloud,” she sang softly. “You silly boy. How long have you been awake?”

The door opened before he could babble more to her, his mother looked up and smiled as the announcer boomed that Queen Lucrecia had arrived too the room. But Cloud froze in his mother’s arms, her joy would be enough to make him happy and willing to be silent, just to learn more about this new world and his new living situation, but the moment Lucrecia had gotten close enough for him to see her, he felt something so evil he froze.

“Hello Queen Lucrecia,” His mother said happily. “What do I owe the surprise pleasure of the company of one of my dearest friends?”

“Well, I just had to come to meet your little boy,” Lucrecia stated, her voice soft as a gentle breeze. But it only made Cloud even more unnerved. “I managed to get time away from the castle to run some errands for Vincent that he couldn’t do, and Sephiroth has stopped breastfeeding, so I figured a quick visit to my dearest friend to meet her son wouldn’t be out of the question. May I hold him?”

“Of course,” His mother said, starting to hand him over to Lucrecia. “He might be a bit fussy at first, doesn’t like new people all that much, but he should settle down when he sees I’m still here.”

Cloud stayed silent as Lucrecia held him, but his eyes were wide with fear, and he was meeting Lucrecia’s black eyes. Her stare was unnerving him, but he couldn’t look away, she felt so evil, so wrong.

“Your son is Gaia Blessed.”

“Yes,” his mother answered, moving to sit back down in her chair. “Isn’t it wo-”

“I’m so sorry for you little one,” Lucrecia said, cutting my mother off. “To be cursed in such a way.”

“My son isn’t cursed, Lucrecia.”

“Cursed to be Gaia’s puppet, a child without a will of his own,” Lucrecia continued as if she didn’t hear Claudia’s words.

“I think you’ve held him long enough.”

Cloud saw his mother get closer, and he screamed, he screamed as loud as he could, but even that was drowned out by the roaring explosion that tore the room apart.

“Forgive me, Claudia,” Lucrecia said, her tone dead and emotionless. “I will fix your son and free him of this curse. Then I will go back to my son and free him of his curse.”

Cloud continued to scream as Lucrecia walked out of the castle, everyone that came to stop her and save him was turned to stone or fell to the ground unmoving. Cloud didn’t stop screaming and wailing until Lucrecia used a sleeping spell to silence him.

Cloud’s last thought was that Sephiroth always had the crazy mom and that his mother better still be alive, or Sephiroth was going to lose his mother again.

\-------------

Sephiroth woke up screaming one word. Cloud. It had startled him so much that he had his gun aimed at his own son’s head before his brain fully processed what was happening. When he did realize his son was sobbing and crying ‘Cloud’ over and over again, he was quick to pick up the boy and cuddle him against his chest, leaving his work on his desk as he started to pace the room while humming softly to his son.

Eventually, he managed to get him calm enough to stop crying, but to know what was wrong was going to take a long time to figure out. Smart or not, his child had just said his first word, well screamed it actually, so he wouldn’t be able to get a straight answer out of his son about what was wrong with this ‘Cloud’ he had woken screaming about.

He was glad his shadows were unmatched when it came to intel gathering, so he knew about everything going on in the kingdoms all over Gaia the day after it had happened, so if this was his son seeing a vision of something that had already happened, was happening, or was about to happen, he would know soon. He wouldn’t even put this down as a nightmare, his son didn’t have nightmares that caused him to cry and scream as much as he was.

It was Lucrecia all over again.

When Sephiroth had calmed down enough for him to return to his seat, he made sure to place him in his lap so he could keep his son close as he continued his work.

“King Vincent!” The captain of the guard yelled out, slamming his study door open. “I have urgent news!”

“What is it?” He asked, shifting his grip on Sephiroth as the boy turned to look at the guard.

“The shadow you ordered to watch over Queen Claudia has just reported that Lucrecia had come to meet Queen Claudia, only for her to blow up the room that the Queen had met her in and walked off with Queen Claudia’s son.”

“Is Claudia okay? How many casualties were confirmed when the report was sent?”

The captain of the guard hesitated, and Vincent felt his heart sink.

“Queen Claudia hadn’t been found when the report came in, and other then the two dozen guards who had tried to stop Lucrecia that were turned completely to stone, no other deaths were reported.”

“Cloud,” Sephiroth muttered sadly, his head falling onto Vincent’s chest. “Dada, Cloud.”

Vincent put his arms around Sephiroth and stood up, pulling his son to rest against his side. He didn’t have to think about his next move.

“Gather my Shadows and mobilize as many troops as you can spare,” he began, walking past the captain of the guard. “I want the lands searched thoroughly for Lucrecia and Claudia’s son. I also need my dragon ready to leave. I am going to Claudia’s castle to help however I can. Sephiroth is coming with me.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” the man called out before running off. Vincent kept walking.

“We won’t let her do the same thing to him that she tried to do to you, Seph,” he whispered to his son, pulling him closer. “We will find him, I promise.”

“Dada, Cloud,” Sephiroth repeated.

“I know, Seph,” he replied. “Cloud is in danger, and we will find him, I promise you.”


End file.
